When I was a kid I was fascinated by encyclopedias. I could amuse myself for hours with one and often did. Maybe that's why I'm so fond of electronic "encyclopedias." And you know what? Every year they get better and this year is no exception.

I've been spending time with the Year 2000 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, and it's so far superior to the dusty old books I used to enjoy so much, I can hardly believe it myself. And I see this kind of stuff every day.

What makes it better than a printed encyclopedia? Lots of stuff. Like searching. It's lightning quick and you can find any word in seconds. Try that with a shelf full of hardbacks. And it's very comprehensive, with more than 37,000 articles, (25% more than the printed edition) plus links to 22,000 more articles on the Internet (more on this subject in a second). Not to mention the 16 hours of sound, 132,000 article-to-article links, 15,000 images, videos, animations, and panoramas. There's even a handy "history" window that keeps a breadcrumb trail of every page you've seen, in case you want to backtrack.

The interface is pretty spiffy, too. Most articles have links to related media including pictures and/or movies and sounds, plus links to related articles both on the CD and on the Internet. Which means that no matter what you're reading about, that page will include several links to related items. It's lots of fun just to "link-jump" and see what you discover.

Speaking of discovering, there are lots of other interesting ways to explore this 2 CD set. There are "Timelines," where you can learn more about eras and events past and present. And "Research Starters," where you can pick a topic and the program presents dozens of relevant links. And a "Knowledge Tree" view that lets you drill down into subjects by presenting an ever-narrowing selection of links to related information. And, of course, there's an atlas with thousands of maps and a dictionary, too.

Last but not least, this program will run on almost any Mac. Its requirements are a 68040 processor or any PowerPC processor, System 7.5 or higher, 8MB RAM (in addition to RAM used by system), CD-ROM drive, color monitor, and access to the World Wide Web using an Internet Service Provider (for Grolier Internet Index and access to other Grolier databases).

OK, I do have a couple of gripes. For one, I never got the dictionary to work (though I expect I will eventually). But my big complaint is that their "disk-swapping" scheme is dumb. Since the program comes on 2 CDs, you sometimes encounter links to material on the "other" CD. My gripe is that clicking one of those links causes your Mac to spit out the current CD and ask you to insert the other one. Every time. That's lame. It ought to inform you that the material you requested is on the other CD, then ask if you would you _like_ to eject the current CD.

Even so, the Year 2000 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia gives you a lot of valuable information for $50. If you don't already own an encyclopedia-on-CD ROM, this is the one you want. On the other hand, many iMac owners received a perfectly serviceable encyclopedia with their computer. I'm not sure the Year 2000 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia is worth $50 to them.

Grolier Year 2000 Multimedia Encylopedia
Street price $50
Grolier, Inc.,
Danbury, Connecticut
203-797-3835
http://gi.grolier.com

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